Emerging Market MNEs: Qualitative Review and Theoretical Directions

The growth of emerging market multinational enterprises (EM MNEs) has enriched existing international business theories but conveyed also new puzzles and questions for these theories and perspectives. To synthesize what we know and what we do not concerning international expansion of EM MNEs, we use the qualitative content analysis method, systematically reviewing 166 articles from 11 leading IB and management journals published during the period of 1990–2014. Our review examines five major areas, including theoretical foundations, major topics, research methods, country studied, and leading authors. Our review shows a strong and growing momentum of EM MNE research over the past 25 years that has tackled a variety of topics by IB scholars who are geographically diversified. To further advance future research on EM MNEs, we submit several new directions, comprising comparative and competitive (dis)advantages, process of international catch up, institutional complexity, heterogeneity and typology of EM MNEs, and host and home country links and global orchestration.